A major difference between pro-life feminism and pro-choice feminism is that pro-choice feminists place limits on women, and pro-life feminists don’t.

If just being pregnant sounds hard, try filming reshoots of an epic battle scene while five months pregnant with your second child. That’s what leading actress Gal Gadot did while finishing the DC Comics super hero movie Wonder Woman. It was quite a feat, to be sure, yet as Gadot proved, working and accomplishing great things while pregnant is something healthy women can do.

Unfortunately, pro-choice advocates focus on what women can’t do, or what they think women can’t do. "You can’t get a college degree if you’re pregnant.” “You can’t pursue a satisfying career if you’re pregnant.” “You can’t be an athlete if you’re pregnant.”

In essence, they say that women who carry their babies to term put their whole life on hold because they are incapable of caring for a baby and pursuing their dreams at the same time. For pro-choice activists, pregnancy is an obstacle some women can never overcome. 

In contrast, pro-life people have always said that women can. There may be temporary delays and a few detours, but a woman can get a college degree if she is pregnant. She can pursue a satisfying and challenging career while pregnant or raising kids. She can continue to be an athlete while carrying a baby. Just look at Gadot. (also, watch Care Net president and CEO Roland C. Warren’s story to see how his wife handled an unplanned pregnancy in college)

Pro-life and pro-choice feminists would all agree that feminism is about what women can do. Women can be just as competent, gifted, and hardworking as men. Women are powerful. Women are strong. And women offer unique perspectives that add value to the workplace.

But saying women can’t pursue their dreams if they get pregnant or raise kids places limits on women’s power, and frankly, as a woman I find it insulting. Women can overcome their hard circumstances and still do the right thing by giving life to their children. And they will be stronger and more powerful for it.

No woman should have to choose between her child and her dreams, because no woman has to.

Therefore, as a pro-life woman, I believe women are more powerful and capable than Planned Parenthood does. I am more pro-woman than they are, because I don’t buy into the lie that abortion empowers women.

I am also more committed to women’s rights because I extend the protection for women to the moment of conception.

Unfortunately, “feminism” today conjures up images of people with radical beliefs, pink hats, and Planned Parenthood banners. However, at its core, feminism is the belief that women and men have equal rights. Yes, God made men and women different, but he made us equal.

Abortion fails to recognize this equality by subjugating the rights of women in the womb to the whims of culture, poverty, and sexism.  Sex-selective abortion and infanticide have claimed the lives of more than 80 million women worldwide. Supporting abortion on demand means defending the right of a woman to be aborted simply because she is not a man.

And in the words of Feminists for Life, “abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women.” Susan B. Anthony, one of our feminist foremothers, recognized this when she wrote, “Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive…the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification… drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.”

Abortion “burdens” women. But more than that it “burdens” the society that makes women believe that ending the lives of their precious children is the only way to get ahead in the world.

As a pro-life woman, I believe every woman has the power to be Wonder Woman and choose life for her children. And as a pro abundant life woman, I believe the only thing more powerful than that is a super hero family made up of Wonder Woman, Super Man, and little junior super heroes who stay faithful to each other and to God.

About the guest blogger: Tiffany Rose is a Care Net summer intern and studies Media Communications at Union University in Tennessee. She is passionate about the right to life and the dignity of all human beings and enjoys serving children and families.